The present disclosure relates to presentation of information, and more particularly to managing presentation of information on an interface used by multiple user types.
Conventional data repositories and interfaces to access and present data stored on such repositories are often cumbersome and not user friendly. Furthermore, conventional data repositories and interfaces for using them are generally not well adapted to facilitate e-learning for a wide range of different professionals within any given field or discipline. For example, with respect to medical e-learning systems, there is no single system currently available that simultaneously reaches a wide range of health care professionals such as physicians, pharmacists, nurses, advanced practice nurses, physician assistants, allied health workers, and students.
Additionally, many professional disciplines (health, law, etc.) require certification through professional examinations and/or continuing education programs, and thus require regular continuous access to current research and development in the respective areas of professional disciplines. For example, health care professionals have to keep apprised of current scientific and medical research, including numerous ongoing clinical trials that continually impact on health care practice. Consequently, a challenge exists for delivering information harvested from new scientific/medical research, including new clinical trial data, in a timely fashion to healthcare professionals. The challenge also includes conveying new drug/pharmaceutical information, including benefits, risks and adverse events associated with drugs/medications, to the health care community, as well as disseminating new information/data regarding risks and benefits of interventional procedures and devices.
Health care professionals also require access to publications providing recommendations for patient care, including interventional procedures and drug use are available in “Best Practice Guidelines” or “Current Clinical Guidelines.” These publications include a composite outcome of past and new research data often generated from an expert panel and may or may not be supported by a Health Care Association. However, while the use of such guidelines is helpful, some short comings include: (i) they are often not universal and may be regional or specific to a particular country, (ii) they represent only the opinions of the members of the review panel, (iii) they are updated at variable time intervals often years apart, (iv) they are usually published in a journal specific to the disease or on an online site specific to the disease with limited readership and so the information/recommendations are often not widely distributed across the medical community and with even much less reach to other health care professionals, and (v) the information is often voluminous and typically distributed over multiple websites such that information retrieval is often tedious and requires multi-website search, i.e. there is no one website that effectively harvests this type of data.
Consequently, there is a major challenge in delivering to health care professionals (as well as delivering information to non-practitioners) current medical, nursing and pharmaceutical information in a practical format and within a timely fashion. Similar challenges exist in delivering current information in other disciplines, including law, engineering, natural sciences, social sciences, arts, etc.